Peppermint
by Phantom Typewriter
Summary: No summary. This is just a bunch of random thoughts that came together one day. Oneshot


Disclaimer: I own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square-Enix, and the creative rights to all property belonging to the aforementioned parties. Yes, that's right, I OWN them, and I can write whatever I want to and nobody can tell me otherwise. If you got a problem with that, go ahead and try to sue me! If you ever manage to track me down, you'll never make your charges stick! So HA! I can say whatever I want about owning the franchise and get away with it! I AM THE AUTHOR, INVISIBLE, UNKNOWN, AND COMPLETELY ALL POWERFUL! BWAHAHAHAAA!

Author's Notes: This is a little one-shot I came up with while eating candy one day, and I just decided to write it. Yes, I realize that it isn't Christmas and won't be for a while, but like I said, I just came up with this while eating candy, so don't expect my line of thought to be rational. This may also serve as a prologue to another story idea I have. It all depends on whether or not I actually manage to finish my current story and start work on another one.

_Peppermint_

It was cold everywhere.

Cold on the outside, cold on the inside... it was like the vacuum of space, devoid of energy. Darkness tends to be that way, and it hurts that much more when you have a heart to feel with. Some people – some _nobodies_ – were lucky enough not to have them, so they didn't have to worry about the darkness devouring them.

However, when you had a heart born from the light, the darkness wasn't so benign. It hurt, even if it drained so much of your life away that you couldn't notice it anymore. Just ask Riku – he could tell you first-hand what it was like.

Ah... yes, Riku. By comparison, his pain wasn't all that bad. He had found his way back to the light. He had found his way to the dawn, and was normal again. Some people weren't so lucky.

And _he_ was to blame for it.

It wasn't enough to simply let the shadows rest; he had to try to control them – to work them to do his bidding. He succeeded, for a while anyway, but when Sora finally banished the shadows back to the realm of darkness, things didn't return to normal.

_I still remember what you gave me. A black heart drenched in darkness, as a mirror of your rival, so that I could do your dirty work for you. Then you cast me aside, not realizing what you had done._

Unlike Roxas, _he_ **did** have a heart. Unlike Sora, however, _he_ didn't have a normal heart, so he couldn't feel the warmth of the light. He was something else entirely...

He was a living shadow; an anti-person.

A _negative_.

"The heart may be weak, and sometimes it may even give in, but I've learned that deep down there's a light that never goes out!"

"So you have come this far..."

And still...

_You understand nothing._

He had no light, only a burning sense that mocked him every day – the feeling of joy that Sora had that he would never have. He was Sora's negative, so of course he could feel what his opposite felt. Every day he wandered through darkness, haunted by the feelings of the light from the other side, clawing at his mind...

It burned him, inside and out, to know what Sora felt and know that he could never feel it for himself. Joy, love, peace... all the traits of the light, he could feel them even against his will. He could _see_ them... blinding images that harassed his mind without end. He could _hear_ them… the sounds of laughter, of children and adults living lives that they could be happy with. He could _taste_ them... the taste of-

Peppermint.

Peppermint candy... Kairi loved the taste of candy canes, the special Christmas candy, and he could taste it. Sora could taste it on her lips every time he kissed her, which was far too often for _his_ tastes.

_Damned mistletoe._

The loneliness of the darkness only made things worse. Sora would always have Kairi, but he had nothing and nobody. Even Roxas, a _nobody_ without a heart had someone to relate to – Namine, Kairi's nobody. But Kairi was too pure to have a negative like Sora did. Sora may be a keyblade master, but he was still a normal person – he had darkness in his heart like everyone else. She, on the other hand, was completely devoid of darkness; she was too simple and clean to end up like him.

That knowledge did wonders for the pain he had to live with; what could otherwise be benign and tolerable was complete torture. It was maddening, the thought that he was singular and alone in the world, and that he would never be able to share that with anyone else. And knowing that Sora _did_ have someone to share his life with...

It made him hate the taste of peppermint.

And he couldn't get the taste out of his mouth – Sora must be addicted to it, for all _he_ could tell. Or maybe he was just addicted to _her_, which was essentially the same thing.

Days would come and go, and that taste never left his mouth. Of course, Sora loved it, and so did Roxas, but what about _him_? Did they even know he existed? Did they even suspect anything at all? Were they really so blinded by living in the light that they had forgotten the darkness exists?

Just because he was born from darkness didn't mean he didn't exist, and it certainly didn't mean he didn't feel anything. Those born in the light can't understand the basic premise of _his_ existence, because they don't want to believe it could be real.

He was born from the darkness. He couldn't live in the light; yet, to live in the darkness was to live in pain. One burned him, the other froze him, and there was no middle ground that he could run to, so he chose to keep lingering in the darkness instead.

Cold on the outside, cold on the inside...

It was cold everywhere...

Just like the winter that Sora felt, except that he had something to keep him warm. The taste of peppermint, every time he kissed her...

Like right now.

_Damn mistletoe._

Author's Notes: I realize now that everything above may be rather confusing, but to put it in proper context, it was written from the perspective of the shadow Sora that you encounter in Neverland in the first Kingdom Hearts. Yeah, the one Riku summoned, which explains the reference. I realize he was never intended to be an actual character or have a heart in any way, but that's the way I wrote it. I hope nobody was _too_ confused by this, but if you were... well tough beans. Like I said, I OWN Kingdom Hearts, so HA!


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